Where did all that Olympic goodwill go?

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Ministerial outbursts, iPhone whines, class sniping: we’ve already forgotten that we’re all in the same boat

I flew to Amsterdam on the day of the Paralympic closing ceremony, and back from Lisbon on the far side of the victory parade. So there was always a risk of returning to a post-Olympic mood slump or national whining fit, of the kind familiar to parents of small children after too much jelly and cake.

Sailing down channel, Radio 4 longwave informed me of the Libyan horror, the Hillsborough verdict and that French mag-readers were gasping at the startling evidence that women have breast things on their fronts. But the signal died in the starry darkness of Biscay, and